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Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Rock & Roll...and High School

So I did my rock mama duties on Sunday night, as I mentioned in my previous post. The Man-Child (who really needs a new nickname) was playing with his group in the Battle of the Bands in Chicago. They checked in at 1pm to find that, because they'd sold the most tickets, (a whopping 21) they were entitled to the head-lining spot at the very end. Woo-hoo. They were elated......

....until they realized that the slot would be around 10.30pm. Now, these guys are 17, 16 and 14, and still at school. Not a good idea on a school night, and they weren't even arguing.

So they went on at about 8pm and, biased as I am, they were brilliant. They are all good musicians in their own right, they practise hard every week, and they love what they do. The Man-Child, a born front-man, inter-acted with the modest audience every step of the way and the whole set was fun. There was a t-shirt give-away with their ironed-on-by-mom logo on the front and back. Older guys from the other bands all came up and congratulated them during the afternoon.

Then the younger two had to go home, and since our school was off the next day, the Man-Child wanted to stay till the end when the results were announced. Three bands would be going through to the next round.

Problem was, the "win" would be decided by audience noise. I was the only fan still in the building, and loud as I am, I was no match for the fifteen guys who had arrived at 9pm to support their friends. We knew this was going to happen, but seeing the three bands who went through (rubbish) an knowing how well our kids had played, it was nonetheless disappointing. Even the woman who was running the whole shebang realized that the best bands hadn't gone through.

Oh well, the rough road to stardom I suppose. Now where's that homework.

What a shame they used the old clap-o-meter method for deciding who should go through. And even worse, you have to smile and accept it otherwise it sounds like sour grapes. So chuffed for your boy and his mates though for performing so well and impressing everyone xx